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The Real Question Isn’t Can You?

It’s How Do You Build the World?

Can a writer create a police drama without ever serving in the police?

Can someone write about corporate power without running a company?

Can you craft a forensic procedural without being a pathologist?

Of course you can.

The writers of Star Trek didn’t go to space.

So the question isn’t whether writers can step beyond their lived experience.
The real question is:

How is that world shaped?

What assumptions sit quietly underneath it?
What feels “plausible” to the writer?
And what invisible ceilings might be installed without anyone noticing?

Case Study: Silent Witness

Let’s look at a long-running BBC forensic procedural: Silent Witness.

Set inside a forensic science laboratory, the show built its world through proper research and consultation. During development, the production team encountered Dr Gillian Bell, a real forensic scientist with osteogenesis imperfecta, who uses a wheelchair and worked successfully in the field.

She was competent.
She was credible.
She was entirely realistic within that professional space.

When the character Clarissa Mullery was created and Liz Carr was cast in the role, the character was grounded in that reality.

This is solid craft.

It demonstrates something important:

A disabled forensic scientist is not imaginative fantasy. It is factual reality.

That matters.

Where Distance Shows Up

At first, Clarissa was the only main character without a romantic storyline.

When she was eventually given one, the framing leaned toward questions like:

“Would someone love her?”
“Can disabled people have sex?”

The husband was initially conceived as unattractive.
The emotional expectations were low.

Not hostile.
Not malicious.
Just limited.

This is where distance doesn’t show up in research.
It shows up in narrative expectation.

The forensic science was accurate.
But the emotional ceiling was quietly installed.

Over time, that ceiling shifted. The character expanded. The storytelling deepened.

That growth is important. It shows evolution.

Growth in Representation

Over the years, Silent Witness has featured other disabled characters and expanded its perspective. Inclusion within production has also evolved, with shadowing schemes supporting disabled craft professionals, including directors.

This is growth.
Not perfection.
But growth.

One example is the episode One Day by Timothy Prager, set within care homes — a world less frequently explored in mainstream procedural drama. The setting shifted. The lens widened.

And when the lens widens, the world becomes richer.

Research Works. Consultation Works. Imagination Works.

Writers absolutely can — and should — write beyond their direct lived experience.

Research works.
Consultation works.
Imagination works.

But distance can quietly shape what feels “believable”.

If a writer has never encountered a disabled person in authority, intimacy, competence, or complexity, that absence may unconsciously shape the boundaries of their storytelling.

That is not about blame.
It is about awareness.

Imagination Builds Worlds.

Lived Experience Expands What Feels Possible Inside Them.

Imagination allows us to create universes.

But lived experience expands what feels plausible within those universes.

When disabled voices are present in the room — as consultants, writers, performers, directors — the world doesn’t just become more accurate.

It becomes bigger.

And that is what interests me.